The Optional Epilogue
by Borderlander
Summary: Gale comes back for Katniss


Katniss returned to District 12 with Peeta. It was hard to make a new life out of the ruins they found. The ashes that covered the ground and the pain that settled in her heart drowned Katniss.

Peeta tried to help. He held her when she woke up screaming. When he found her teary eyed, standing where her old home once stood, he kissed her firmly on the mouth. And when her fingers desperately grasped at his arms and her tongue begged him to help her feel again he made love to her.

No woman was ever meant to see and do and survive the things that Katniss had. Even as her belly swelled with Peeta's child she could rarely coax a smile to her tired lips. The forest, once her place of solace, felt empty. Too wide and silent for her now. She half wished there had never been a rebellion. Then her family would still have been together. Maybe then she could laugh with her sweet, blue-eyed baby. Chatter with the other women who returned to their destroyed district.

As Katniss drifted through the smoke of her nightmare-world, Gale worked his way back to her, and his home.

He stood in the old town square and frowned. He had been whipped for killing a turkey there, before the revolution. Now he could all the turkeys he wanted. But the freedom to hunt meant nothing to him. He had so _many_ freedoms that meant nothing. Not without…

Out of the corner of his eye he saw her. Thin as always, though surely she could have all the food she wanted now. She practically cowered under Peeta's arm, gently swung around her shoulders. Not like she was afraid of him, like she was afraid he wasn't enough protection. In her arms was a bundle…

Gale started when he realized Katniss cradled an infant. Its hair was a blonde tuft, and its eyes startlingly blue. Peeta's child. Anger flashed through him.

Later, Gale went to Peeta and Katniss's house. Peeta came to the door, scarcely limping on his false leg. He narrowed his eyes slightly before quietly granting Gale entrance.

Katniss sat at the small kitchen table, still holding her baby, offering its puckered pink lips a bottle. Her eyes fixed on Gale's unwaveringly. He read no emotion in her stare. "Gale." She quietly acknowledged.

"Hello, Katniss." He returned. Glancing at Peeta he asked "How old is the baby?"

Peeta answered "Seven months."

Gale nodded, hiding the envy that bubbled in his gut. "Congratulations."

There was a moment of silence before Peeta, casting glances between the two of them finally said "Maybe you want to talk alone… I'll leave you to it, then." And slipped out the front door. Before he closed it behind him, Peeta fixed his gaze on Katniss "I love you."

She only nodded weakly.

Once Peeta was gone, Gale spoke softly. "Do you love him?"

"I don't know." Katniss whispered. "I'm tired of loving people and losing them." Gale frowned at the child she held. Katniss noticed, and laughed without feeling. "Most days I think I love Finnick."

"You named him for-?"  
"He was a good man, Gale." Katniss's eyes went hard, trapped the tall man with the intensity of her glare.

Before Gale could stop himself, he asked "And am I?"  
Katniss cast her eyes about his form, still dirty from travel. "I'm still trying to forgive you."

He came closer. "What do I have to do?"

Katniss surveyed his face, still showing no emotion. "Kiss me," She commanded flatly.

Gale knelt before her chair, leaned forward, tilted his head. Softly, he pressed his lips to hers. He felt Katniss sigh. After a moment of chaste kissing, she slowly pulled her head away.

"Well?" He quirked an eyebrow. "Am I forgiven?"

Katniss leaned in this time, and Gale met her mouth with his. This kiss was more eager, firmer. Finnick whimpered quietly as Gale tried to bring his chest closer to Katniss's.

She pulled away again, and whispered, "It's different with Peeta."  
"Different how?"

"It's safer."

Peeta didn't cry when Katniss threw her few belongings into a battered bag and walked out the door hand in hand with Gale. He didn't cry when he gave Finnick his bottle that first night with her gone. His tears had dried up so long ago. Just as he had lost Katniss long before they lived together. Before she had his baby.

Gale did not cry when he took Katniss into the forest and promised her a new life. Once the joy might have moistened his eyes, but now even such intense emotion had no effect on him.

Katniss's eyes were dry until Gale took her to the old house by the lake and gently undressed her. "You're so beautiful," he whispered against her lips. "Love you so much," he breathed when he pushed inside her. "I've always loved you."

Her tears fell slowly as she whispered back, "I love you."


End file.
